by Oluseun Onigbinde

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The Work is Never Done

If you’re walking down the right path and you’re willing to keep walking, eventually you’ll make progress. – Barack Obama

I like to tell my story. The world is a story. Our life is a story – a story between two eternities – birth and death.I mean right from the creation with powerful lessons of sequence, you can see how the story goes till rest on the seventh day.

My story is about that of persistence. I have been within an ecosystem and I see people give up and throw in the towel. Folks begin a startup with raised dreams. That funds will pour in fast pace and life will go on a freewheel. Then the bugbears appear till they give up and go back to ease and comfort.

If you think that VC (venture capitalists) will just drop dead at your idea and empty his pocket, it might not just happen. Even for those with civic ideas, the donor will not just fall for one-minute pitch. After serious exchange of emails and awkward questioning of impact, that’s when the funds might finally come. At times, it might not even come. To get a grant, I to exchange at least 65 emails. It’s never that easy. Now with committed revenues (grants and services) of over N60m within a year, the work is still never done. We have to keep meeting donors and client demand. Salary and payments for consultancy are at least N1.5m per month and we have to keep doing it right.

Money is just an exchange of value. As long as you are trying to unlock value, it will finally be worth it. I have slept in the couch of developers for days. I have looked for wi-fi in Lome to send that last email, lost sleep, food, friendships, privacy etc. I have been abused as a workaholic.

The fears will not disappear, you have to acknowledge them. Will the funds stop? Will we ever stop producing value? Valid questions. It must never stop us from trying. Dont ever stop, the cost of giving up is too huge in the midst of nothingness. You were chosen as the steward of the times to fulfill a purpose.